Leonine Peace

Maybe I missed the point in this poem (she says now), maybe the point is that life and the living of it require incredible loyalty and bravery.

Maybe Leo popped out of my box, now as I begin to think about how to honor Deb, to talk about how brave she was in continuing to live when so much was lost to her. In continuing to fight the cancer against impossible odds.

I do know that, with my heart set always on Peace, I can overlook the importance of warriors and even Peace Keepers/Defenders. That was where I headed with this poem. Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll have to head another way.

Thanks, Leo. You brought a lot to my life when you sprang out of your box to lie atop your pedestal in my china cabinet. I’ll keep trying to discern what, exactly, I might learn from you.

Trying to Solidify Peace

As I was writing yesterday, this is what occurred to me… maybe the handling of stuff, precious, inherited stuff is an occupation in which we engage in order to begin to knit together the frayed edges of our souls. This is what it feels like, for me at least… as if our souls are open at the edges where our beloved departed?

and yet, box by box, pack things down and then open them out again, choose what stays and then choose where the rest will go and the held back will be displayed, perhaps this is how we come to terms with the leaving… only as we settle in. only as handle each of the pieces our beloveds have handled.

I’m touching a lot of my past in this move… my sister was the keeper of much of the family heirlooms. And I also unpacked a box that had been tucked away for 7 years that I’d brought home from my father’s place when he died. So much history. Pretty soon, the table my brother made in 9th grade shop will have some of the same mementos that it held when it graced my parent’s living room, oh a decade ago…

and in the touching, there is remembering. and in the remembering there is a re-membering a pulling back together of life, different but still containing them… replacing, oh-so-slowly, the great gaping emptiness.

And although this is a lot of noble philosophy, I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that must be done. balance. Let’s keep looking for balance. In the meantime, I’ll keep working at staying present, making the memories stick, and giving thanks that I was as lucky as I was. And I’ll keep unpacking, shall I?

Wisps of Peace

Driving across the bridge yesterday, I was ambushed by the beauty. Sweet wisps of fog dancing on the river’s surface as the sun rose.

One of the challenges of mourning is making space for beauty. To some extent you live in a fog. One foot in front of the other, doing what needs to be done. Staring into space, occasionally curling into a ball.

I have gotten by with a great deal of help from my friends. One of the odd things about grief is that you’re very muzzy-headed, so to have to make loads of decisions is hard. But the ending of a life brings nothing but decisions. and stuff. it brings lots of stuff. and I am so easily overwhelmed by stuff and details in the best of times. so you can imagine how it is now.

There have been angels. People who swoop into my life and in an hour or two, make it different. People who offer. People who write or call. people who prop you up. People who surround you because your boundaries are about as fuzzy as your brain. I’ve recently taken to describing this brain as acid etched. Whole pieces are missing.

I’ve partnered with grief enough to know that your brain eventually rebuilds, the holes reconnect — but in the meantime. sheesh. It’s the silly things, you know. A book in the series of a favorite author came out and I fell on it joyfully. Distraction. But I found myself really annoyed that she was referring to a period in this character’s life as if I should know it. Why would I know this? I was almost finished with the book when I realized, oh, I should know this because the last book was about this. But I’d completely forgotten. When I finally fished the book out of my shelves, I remembered, but it was gone.

If grief had not been a frequent companion in my past, I might have panicked. As it was, I thought, “Ann, pay attention, because you’re not working with a full brain. Keep your expectations low… and be safe.”

So to have beauty pierce the fog of mourning is delightful. And what was lovely was that it wasn’t only my fog that beauty was piercing. It was also piercing the fog of the morning, no “u.” And while all the heavy fog had fled, there remained small columns of vapors drifting together across the water. It was exquisite. Last week I drove through the Poconos and the colors were changing. Every once in a while a tree would scream color and beauty and dare me to ignore the bounty. I was about to talk how Autumn is particularly beautiful, but perhaps what I need to say is that each season has a particular beauty that opens us, and helps us remember that this will end.

Wisps of Peace. All I can appreciate; all I can withstand at the moment. But still, Beauty is. Hope is. Peace is. Even in the fog of mourning.

Peace of the Moment

Living in the moment. ack. According to most traditions, being present is what is asked of us. We are to delight in the moment. Pay attention heretics… it’s not all about the next life. Why would we have this life if we weren’t to enjoy it?

There are those glorious moments when it’s easy. Look. Life is grand!

But most of life is? Not that.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ‘way over yonder recently. Not so much the ‘way over yonder of death, but the ‘way over yonder of “if I can only finish this, life will exist on the other side.”

Hello! Lying to myself. Life is in the mess. In the packed dishes, mine and my sister’s mingling, in the paper on the floor, in the box spring that doesn’t go up the stairs.

It’s not about snapping and whining that life is too hard. It’s about opening and going through. Because, in fact, I have a box spring that doesn’t go up the stairs in my cozy little home. I have stuff. I had the most remarkable sister. I had a great family whose mementos surround me. I have great family who love and laugh and bicker. I have friends who pack my stuff, who move my stuff, who hold my hand, listen to me moan, weep with me. Life is right here.

If I fail to be grateful, I miss the point. I miss the Peace. … dammit. Once again, here we are, lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. It’s not about sitting on the mountain top, it’s about living in the muck. In the summer, I need to remember I love the feel of mud squishing between my toes. In the winter? I’ve got great boots. forward ho!

Present and accounted for. Until, of course, it gets hard. And then I can learn this lesson again.

Sunshine Peace

This mourning thing is curious. At the same time your life is unraveling, it’s being knitted up again in new ways. Life reforms. Arms open and then close around you. People do stupid silly things with you and for you. You go through the list and get things done. And I’ve actually accomplished great piles of things. And soon will have a bit better handle on things needing to be done, thank the All That Is.

Everything’s out of season right now. It should not be this warm. Even while I enjoy the weather, I worry about what it means. And that’s another weird thing about mourning. You don’t stop making associations and connections — or at least you don’t all the time. Sometimes the brain really works and then you fret about global warming for a bit.

And today, lots of things worked. My cousin and I got to hug and mourn. We got to drink and laugh. My cousin whom I knew not very well at all growing up, but who looks like me. My cousin whom I got to know very well, because I married her to her husband.

For Life, Love, Hope, Peace are all there even when things are bleak. And occasionally they manage to shine through the cloud that sometimes hangs over your head and sometimes is held there so you don’t have to face the world — even the wonderful things can seem overwhelming. But there they are. Steadfast companions. And sooner or later you know, you’ll be back on the Peace Road. Changed… maybe even transformed. Tired. But Steadfast too. Because that is what you are called to be.

The Peace Sabbath of In-Between

In between is where the magic and the mystery happens. I believe that. Things happen on the way to somewhere else. But no one ever tells you how long it takes to get through. If they did, would we believe them? If we believed them, would we go?

I’m a woman of chaos. Lots boiling around in my brain. Lots of people and events and stuff boiling around in my life. Because of that, I keep things pared down. I can eat the same foods. Sit in the same chair. I can even read the same book, over and over and over again. Small delightful snippets to remind me. Small delightful snippets to distract me. Very little noise it distracts me. (She married a drummer????????? ah, right they live separately.)

But closing down Deb’s house, deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Making space at my house. Deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Bringing what will be kept to my place. Trying to clean it up, figure it out, fit it all in. Trying to make life simple.

Trying to do this with half a brain… people with broken hearts don’t have lots of consistent brain power to rely on. (although, rejoice, i read part of a real book! a NEW book, no small delightful snippet. something I had to chew on.)

So, even though Sundays are work days for me, my work is the work of presence. and that’s the work of the sabbath… That’s why i stayed up last night moving things about so that I could spend time today just being present to poetry, to song, to community, to people’s adventures, to friends and family, to the empty spaces. Sabbath. even in the wilderness. Hoping that the wandering helps me find my way home to Peace and a peace-filled, memory-rich home. Other people wait for me to make my way back home, but memories are what I have of my sister… so I must celebrate them.

Expectant Peace

Do I expect too much of you? I’ve been told that that’s in my bag o’ tricks. But is it too much when I know how wonderful you are? I still don’t know the answer to that question. It’s hard expecting nothing… and I’ve always felt we live into others’ expectations of us…

Do I expect too much of myself. Hmmm. I’d probably have to give a fairly equivocal answer here. Sometimes I think my expectations are ‘way high… right now. I’m not sure that I can keep moving along on the time frame I’ve set myself… gotta get it done, gotta get it done… I’m always sure the expectations are external… and yet, and yet… i want things to be wonderful… and so you work and work and work…

Other times, I duck out…

But life is short. and sometimes it feels that the need is desperate. How can I not look to you. Why don’t we grab hands and go along this Peace Path? Why would we live any other ways… because we want, I believe this, we want the same things from life… and we deserve them… and only we can give them to one another. So yes. i guess i do wait for great things from you. I hope you’ll wait for them from me as well. Peace, my dears.

Trust and Peace

The notion of trust has been on my mind for so many reasons recently, many of them sweet. Deb’s last words to me were “Oh, Annie I trust you with everything.” I’ll take that. I’ll cherish that. That’s the sweetest Love in the hardest places.

But trust has limits… it breaks… we falter. Sometimes that enrages me — as when governmental bodies or large corporations spend a lot more resources sniffing out trust breakers than they save. But they love the notion that they’re “catching” the bad guys,” never mind when it’s at the expense of “the good guys.” Once you’re focused on the bad guys, there’s nothing left but waiting till the good guys show their true bad colors.

Purely anecdotal, but the only time I cheated in school is when elaborate procedures were put in place to keep me from cheating. on a typing test. Proud that I cheated? Nah, not so much. But still shaking my head over the stupidity? yep. And for a woman who spent and still spends a lot of time coloring within the lines, it was a daring slash of color. Even if it was on a course I paid for… and I actually, now that I remembered, pretty much half the time cheated for other people. Wow, talk about an old memory. Funny. It certainly made me untrustworthy in that course…

I watched a person with a debilitating illness be cross examined yesterday in an effort to catch her out. Someone who should have been able to understand the disease left with the words: I hope you feel better soon. There was a lot of effort put in to catching out someone they’ve been in relationship with for a long time. yep, that’s aggravating. (and don’t even get me started on the lack of accessible restrooms in the place where they bring people with neurological difficulties to be tested. really?????

I think trust is something we must work to have, even when people are untrustworthy. Otherwise we live in a closed and frightening world… because of a few who are out there to spoil our world. I believe that trust strengthens as we exercise it. I think perhaps it needs to be cherished and celebrated simply because it is elusive. We fail at things. If the penalties for failing are too high, we don’t get back on the horse. We shut down. We begin to believe we’re miserable people and act accordingly. And we certainly don’t apologize. (notice my nice justification for cheating above? As on bluster and self-excusing, Es on trustworthiness and apologies.)

But if we notice that trust like life is impermanent, can we see it as precious? If we understand that Peace is living into Peace not being at perfect Peace and there will be missteps and mistakes, can we be better at all of them — Peace, Life, Trust?

It’s worth exploring, don’t you think? Because is there anything I could have rather heard Deb say as she let me give her medicine and try and make her comfortable as she was dying? I can’t imagine what. The Love was all through those words, and spoken so many times… but the trust… oh, how sweet. I’ll live a lifetime on that. I’ll live a lifetime trying to live up to that.

Paradise, Peace and Ugly Reality

There I was, reveling in the beauty, focused on my own sweet task. The weather was unbelievable, out of season fabulous. The beach was clear and wide and clean. Impossible to tell there’d been a horrible hurricane just last year. And the water? September sweet. Warm and clean. No better place, it seemed, to lay my burden down.

And there was my cousin along with me. Her first step out into the world after a summer of back surgeries and setbacks remembering that she is a woman who travels. We have fun together, we laughed at the inconveniences. We both worked. (I worked, I read, it felt like old times. There was my brain, processing information, in what felt like forever. What was not to like?)

Well, of course, even in the midst of euphoria, reality intrudes. We’re not the only ones who came to this waterline. And not everyone came to worship.

Many came to gamble. Many came to party. Many came to work so that others can do those things. This is a town of gritty realities. I live tucked away a rural landscape where our gritty realities are spread out. Easily avoided. There’s no town square. Homeless people don’t “sleep rough in the woods.” They live right there, waking or sleeping. They panhandle.

People who gamble here do it on line, in the privacy of their homes. If they wander downstairs, dazed by their addictions or their losses, whose to see. Who’s to hear them through their thin walls, calling, begging for more money.

It was time to go home and start thinking about it all. Because that’s the irony, isn’t it. These things live side by side. We were finding Peace in this place because the price for sitting on the beach was right… and of course it was… because money was being made on folks whose seeking was so very different. But the magic of the water was there. The possibility of being present, there as well. All the tawdry tinsel in the world couldn’t change that. The couple in their 80s he in his wheelchair, she frail thing that she was, sat in the same spot every day, soaking in the wonder. The shoreline… so much happens there. Self-reflection… self-indulgence … immersion, in the water, and in the greater wonder.

Peace Where You Find It

Oh, it was a magical day yesterday. The weather was perfect. Not right for the season, perhaps, but exactly right for what I wanted to do. Which was sit at the shoreline and perhaps, perhaps, to dive into the waves.

I ran away (and ran into people who had stayed with the fabulous artist who makes these mandalas) and had a chance to stop and a moment to reflect. My cousin and I could mourn together. We did that. We also laughed together and told stories and ate food both wonderful and ridiculous.

And in thinking about how perfect it was right here in this moment… I thought about how perfect it is right there where I live. That love and life is where you find it and where you make it. Yesterday was a gift… but today is reality. and Peace lives in both places… if only I’m willing to treasure it and build on it…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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